The Foundry with Chris Read

“[Lyft’s] whole ‘we’re the kinder, gentler Uber’ is great branding but total baloney.” Josh Mohrer, former General Manager of Uber New York — the ridesharing giant now gearing up for IPO, whose New York operation Josh grew from 3 people to $3 billion in gross receipts. This week we talk why he joined what was a luxury car service, the biggest misunderstood Uber scandals, how he convinced early employees to join a New York taxi competitor, the coming Uber mafia, crisis, and doing things that don’t scale.

“You could see the light shine from customers’ eyes.” Steve Miller, CFO of Warby Parker — the ubiquitous online glasses retailer with a deep cultural cachet. This week we talk how he knew Warby was special, a $100 billion opportunity, brand-building, offline stores for an online company, the CFO and the social mission, obsession, and Nelson Mandela.

"I basically cold-emailed Steve Jobs and said: why aren't you doing this?" Katia Beauchamp, CEO & Co-Founder of Birchbox — the original beauty sample ‘subscription box’ that spawned a legion of copycats, now with over 1 million subscribers and even more customers. This week we talk cold-emails to Steve Jobs, ignorance and beginner's mindset, offline to online industry dynamics, hiring cues, strength and compassion in management, passive consumers, and truths of the beauty industry.